Monthly Archives: June 2012

Much has happened during the long time since I last posted! I had my graduation ceremony, participated in two group exhibitions, and most excitingly, I was accepted into an artist-in-residence program in Toronto! Lots of changes are ahead, but I am truly excited and looking forward to the opportunity to explore a big city with a very lively and diverse arts community.

Amidst the entire goings on of the past two months, I’ve been trying to continue pushing the development of my framework experimentation. I ended up choosing one design, and making four identical pairs in different colors. Once I settle into my workspace at the residency, I hope to incorporate some metalwork into the design to create functional earrings.

When attempting to develop new designs, I often turn to model making- a form of quick three-dimensional sketching that can capture a sudden thought or idea. It’s quite an intuitive process, and it serves as a perfect outlet for exploring curiosities without investing too much time or materials.

The design I used for the earrings involved much sawing, trimming, and sanding to make the wooden pieces fit together properly. It was a bit tedious, and required a fair amount of time. I felt that in order to move forward with more designs I needed to find a way to create quick mock-ups. Modeling clay such as Fimo is often useful for creating forms, so I uncovered my old box of clay.

Actual frame (left); frame impression and mold (right).

I had a few frames at my work table and I was suddenly inclined to use the clay to create an impression of the beautiful designs on the frame. I was intrigued by the the outcome and created several impressions of different frames, which I baked to harden. I later used these impressions as molds to create casts of the framework.

Frame impressions and casts.

The most exciting part was that the malleability of the clay allowed me to manipulate the shape of the framework; it could be stretched, curved, and I could create new designs by picking and choosing specific components from different frames. Ohhh the possibilities!